Simple ration.

caseman

Trying to reduce feed bill here. Fed up buying expensive ration from millers.
I've got a few straight prices here to see what ye think.
dried barley 185 tonne
distilllers 265 tonne
soya hulls 220 tonne
Would 50% barley 30% soya hulls 20% distillers be a desent mix for feeding heifers and young bulls.
This mix would work out at 209 euro a tonne.
Any other ideas out their.

Farmer Pudsey

caseman wrote: »

Trying to reduce feed bill here. Fed up buying expensive ration from millers.
I've got a few straight prices here to see what ye think.
dried barley 185 tonne
distilllers 265 tonne
soya hulls 220 tonne
Would 50% barley 30% soya hulls 20% distillers be a desent mix for feeding heifers and young bulls.
This mix would work out at 209 euro a tonne.
Any other ideas out their.

If for feeding with silage I would increase the barley and the distillers by 10% each and decrease the soyahulls. Your present mix is 13.5% protein approx. Distillers is 23% protein barley and hulls 11% approx.. If you are feeding silage as well you only need a small quanity if any. I put as much barley as possible at that price.

How much do you intend to feed and how much silage, is the barley rolled or milled.

caseman

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If for feeding with silage I would increase the barley and the distillers by 10% each and decrease the soyahulls. Your present mix is 13.5% protein approx. Distillers is 23% protein barley and hulls 11% approx.. If you are feeding silage as well you only need a small quanity if any. I put as much barley as possible at that price.

How much do you intend to feed and how much silage, is the barley rolled or milled.

Feeding with silage a small bit of straw.
I have to roll the barley myself not looking foward to that.

Farmer Pudsey

If my figures are right a mix of 30% distillers, 60% barley and 10% soyahulls would be about 14.5% protein. To increase/decrease Protein by 0.6% adjust distillers by 10%.

remember use minerals and Vitimans and I would add 1% cubicle lime(calcium) to the mix.

moy83

Is this being mixed in a diet feeder or is there a simpler way ?

caseman

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If my figures are right a mix of 30% distillers, 60% barley and 10% soyahulls would be about 14.5% protein. To increase/decrease Protein by 0.6% adjust distillers by 10%.

remember use minerals and Vitimans and I would add 1% cubicle lime(calcium) to the mix.

Would you get away without minerals and vitimans fedding heifers for 90 to 100 days.
I'll be feeding some yeast as well.

Farmer Pudsey

caseman wrote: »

Would you get away without minerals and vitimans fedding heifers for 90 to 100 days.
I'll be feeding some yeast as well.

If you are finishing I would feed about 20gr/100kgs it is not big money. If you pay 18 euro/25kg bag total cost is 5.5c/day for a 400kg animal and about 1/3 of that for calcium. Know a farmers that feeds ordinary salt to suckler cows over the winter swears by it not sure of the amount says he buys it by the Ton :eek::eek::eek:

Markcheese

caseman wrote: »

Feeding with silage a small bit of straw.
I have to roll the barley myself not looking foward to that.

Get an electric auger and a hopper to go over the roller mill , if you can position the roller (or make a frame ) to fill into a bulk bag or the loader bucket you shouldn't have too much drama,

Muckit

May be of help to someone. Took a pic off one of the teagasc boards at a recent farm walk. It shows two finishing rations formulated by Grange and Kildalton College

mf240

moy83 wrote: »

Is this being mixed in a diet feeder or is there a simpler way ?

Could mix a few ton with a front bucket.

Or else if a small farmer(like me) you could tip in three separate piles then just fill in separate buckets in required ratio and fire all into troughs together.

caseman

moy83 wrote: »

Is this being mixed in a diet feeder or is there a simpler way ?

No feeder, the distillers and soya come mixed then it's fill the wheelbarrow
Not easy but hopefully a feeder next year

bob charles

the value option would be barley and maize. There is a reason maize is the main cattle feed in the world. Two products that are consistent and your getting serious value this winter with. I fail to see how Teagasc can make a simple diet so complicated, but they probably wanted a higher protein content in the feed.


Corn Gluten is also good value this year but its a product I dont use, would give similar results to imported Dried distillers grains at a cheaper price.

Your soya hull are on the expensive side

Sharpshooter82

I was thinking of just feeding beef nuts, silage and rolled barley this winter

Muckit

bob charles wrote: »

the value option would be barley and maize. There is a reason maize is the main cattle feed in the world. Two products that are consistent and your getting serious value this winter with. I fail to see how Teagasc can make a simple diet so complicated, but they probably wanted a higher protein content in the feed.


Corn Gluten is also good value this year but its a product I dont use, would give similar results to imported Dried distillers grains at a cheaper price.

Your soya hull are on the expensive side

Bob can you tell me is there a difference between maize meal and flaked maize/clarenda/indian meal?

Muckit

OK bob here's a simpler one that he showed me.....

bob charles

Muckit wrote: »

Bob can you tell me is there a difference between maize meal and flaked maize/clarenda/indian meal?

maize meal is maize ground to dust in a hammer mill
flaked maize is basically like corn flakes-more expensive but easier on stomach
Clarenda - some young wan you used to know?
Indian Meal - what you have before you go on the beer


I would have no problem feeding just one ingredient to animals on grass or with very good silage even for finishing cattle. A single ingredient keeps costs down and quality up. Most on here dont have to facilities and machinery to be messing around with 2 and 3 products, even the mill mixing them is adding considerably, with often the product having to go through the mill and extra haulage. There is peanuts to be made finishing cattle or anywhere in beef for that matter, cost have to be kept as low as possible without comprising on quality.

mf240

bob charles wrote: »

maize meal is maize ground to dust in a hammer mill
flaked maize is basically like corn flakes-more expensive but easier on stomach
Clarenda - some young wan you used to know?
Indian Meal - what you have before you go on the beer

How much more expensive are the flakes?

bob charles

mf240 wrote: »

How much more expensive are the flakes?

Kellogs or Tesco own brand??? I havnt a clue as never bought any quantity of them, guess €20 a ton, Flakes to me are just eye candy to make your weanling crunch look nice to you. Stick in a few green peas and farmers will go made for it

Muckit

bob charles wrote: »

Clarenda - some young wan you used to know?
Indian Meal - what you have before you go on the beer

Bob... let me educate you... maize is also called 'indian corn'. we used call it indian meal.

Now unless I'm going cuckoo (and that well maybe) I remember the oul lad also calling it Clarenda (perhaps it was on the bag?) Perhaps it came from Clarinda, Iowa in US?? I just googled.

We used to add it to boiled water and make a mash of it with spuds and feed it to our big hungry Labradors. My Granny used also feed this mash to hens.

Midlandsman80

Muckit wrote: »

Bob... let me educate you... maize is also called 'indian corn'. we used call it indian meal.

Now unless I'm going cuckoo (and that well maybe) I remember the oul lad also calling it Clarenda (perhaps it was on the bag?) Perhaps it came from Clarinda, Iowa in US?? I just googled.

We used to add it to boiled water and make a mash of it with spuds and feed it to our big hungry Labradors. My Granny used also feed this mash to hens.

Granny used to feed the hens "clarinda" soaked in water... just like cornflakes...dad still calls it that though the bag says Flaked maize...

Farmer Pudsey

Midlandsman80 wrote: »

Granny used to feed the hens "clarinda" soaked in water... just like cornflakes...dad still calls it that though the bag says Flaked maize...

I think it was also called ''preata'' or something like that as well

charityboy

Could that be presto ???

manjou

What i did last spring to feed to sucklers was got half ton bag of soya meal and ton bag of rollled barley and gave cows half kg of soya to 2 kg of barley.Measured weight in buckets and poured into my expensive diet feeder aka wheelbarrow then marked in barrow how much of each filled it and tipped it out as walked down passageway soya first and when came back with barley they had soya ate.Then spread minerals on barley took 15 minutes to feed 50 cows.

Farmer Pudsey

manjou wrote: »

What i did last spring to feed to sucklers was got half ton bag of soya meal and ton bag of rollled barley and gave cows half kg of soya to 2 kg of barley.Measured weight in buckets and poured into my expensive diet feeder aka wheelbarrow then marked in barrow how much of each filled it and tipped it out as walked down passageway soya first and when came back with barley they had soya ate.Then spread minerals on barley took 15 minutes to feed 50 cows.

I have the same model of diet feeder;).

bob charles

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I have the same model of diet feeder;).

Is that the big green one, have you relined your shovel yet?

Dampintheattic

manjou wrote: »

What i did last spring to feed to sucklers was got half ton bag of soya meal and ton bag of rollled barley and gave cows half kg of soya to 2 kg of barley.Measured weight in buckets and poured into my expensive diet feeder aka wheelbarrow then marked in barrow how much of each filled it and tipped it out as walked down passageway soya first and when came back with barley they had soya ate.Then spread minerals on barley took 15 minutes to feed 50 cows.

That's for cows. I have similar diet feeder, so what would you recommend for feeding weanlings. In keeping over winter and selling in March / April.
Normally use 1.5kgs beef nuts for bulls and 1.0kgs to heifers.
Beef nuts seem to have more rubbish in them year after year.

Username John

Muckit wrote: »

Bob... let me educate you... maize is also called 'indian corn'. we used call it indian meal.

Now unless I'm going cuckoo (and that well maybe) I remember the oul lad also calling it Clarenda (perhaps it was on the bag?) Perhaps it came from Clarinda, Iowa in US?? I just googled.

We used to add it to boiled water and make a mash of it with spuds and feed it to our big hungry Labradors. My Granny used also feed this mash to hens.

I may be totally wrong about this...

But way back in famine times, was there corn meal brought in from the Indians in North America? Apparently they did some collection. So it was called Indian meal?
This is based on some half memory from national school, which may or may not be right - now that I think about, am sure the Indians had their own problems, so not sure

But that's where I think Indian meal came from, also called yellow meal round here.
And round here, flaked maize = prata as Pudsey said.
Clarenda, no idea...

Farmer Pudsey

bob charles wrote: »

Is that the big green one, have you relined your shovel yet?

No galvanised Bob with it heaped over the top it holds about 65kgs of a corse ration normally. Use a big aluminium shovel to unload push the bale of silage in front bale of straw between two pen.Can feed back and front of pens and can tip end of barrow. Green barrow too hard to push full and awkward to empty.

Feeding this way for 5-6 years since I build shed low maintenance and servicing costs. Good trick is to have a spare wheel to throw on if other one gets punctured.

Farmer Pudsey

Dampintheattic wrote: »

That's for cows. I have similar diet feeder, so what would you recommend for feeding weanlings. In keeping over winter and selling in March / April.
Normally use 1.5kgs beef nuts for bulls and 1.0kgs to heifers.
Beef nuts seem to have more rubbish in them year after year.

If you can get molasses there is a few different protein versions. Normal molasses is about 8%, then they have 14 and 23% as well as higher protein versions.

23% version with minerals and calcium would be the bees knees for weanlings. But a bit of work. A litre weighs about 1.5kgs. If you get it in IBC's and feed along top of silage and in trough at back if not enough head space. Will also reduce silage waste to minimum. Because of high moisture(around70%DM) feed about 40% more. Kg fo Kg it will be better than most bag rations and should come in at 70% of the price

leg wax

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If you can get molasses there is a few different protein versions. Normal molasses is about 8%, then they have 14 and 23% as well as higher protein versions.

23% version with minerals and calcium would be the bees knees for weanlings. But a bit of work. A litre weighs about 1.5kgs. If you get it in IBC's and feed along top of silage and in trough at back if not enough head space. Will also reduce silage waste to minimum. Because of high moisture(around70%DM) feed about 40% more. Kg fo Kg it will be better than most bag rations and should come in at 70% of the price

but where can you collect this 23% version in ibcs

bob charles

leg wax wrote: »

but where can you collect this 23% version in ibcs

Molasses is really a super under used product, I use allot of it when not feeding beet. a kilo or 2 will replace nearly like for like grain considering whats in some of the bags. Some of the merchants and coops stock IBC so ring about or give Premier Molasses a ring for a supplier in your area

spec sheet attached.

http://www.premiermolasses.ie/images/stories/Product_analysis_DM-sept13.pdf.